The Stable Girl
by bobbingformangos
Summary: What if Emma was the Stable Girl that Regina fell in love with? What happens when she is reincarnated? Brought on by a prompt.
1. Intro

She was a quick study, Emma should have known.

She was Regina Mills - she would have been an honored princess if her grandfather's kingdom didn't get overtaken by the white kingdom.

Given, not overtaken.

Emma had to remember correctly but she didn't really care all that much. He father was a sheep herder and her grandfather before that. Her mother's past was mysterious but she taught her how to love off the land, shoot a straight arrow, and ride horses.

It came in handy.

She was the best horsewoman in all of the kingdom and that's why the Mills hired her for the spring and summer months.

Regina was a quick study. Great form, a beautiful way with animals, and an energy that sent waves of something through Emma's body.

Emma wasn't surprised that she fell in love with her.

She was surprised when her body hummed with magic the moment they kissed or when the stars shined brighter when they made love in the hay bales in the loft of the back stables.

Emma loved the dark haired girl with all of her being.

It was no surprise to her when Regina found her in the loft in the middle of the night begging for Emma to run away with her.

They had to run away.

Or else her mother -

"You think it would be that easy, dear?" Cora's voice was like acid to Emma's ears.

Heartless.

She stood up to her. Of course she did. She was brash and impulsive and she turned to grasp Regina's hands and held them tight in her own with hope in her green eyes.

"We will always find each other -" It was silly, to make such promises that where only meant for her parents.

Regina watched as her mother did what was best for her daughter and ripped out Emma's heart - crushing it into ashes.

* * *

"I found my real mom!" Henry yelled, running past Regina into the house.

Regina looked up, finally getting a look at the woman standing on the sidewalk in front of her.

A gasp escapes her mouth.

Hand coming to cover up her lips.

"Emma."

"Yeah, sorry about this whole thing. I guess I'll be headed back to Boston." Emma pointed toward her best up bug. She smiled, "He's a good kid - I'm glad you found each other."

And with that, Emma Swan hopped into her beat up yellow bug and drove out of Storybrooke.


	2. 2

**2. **

* * *

There are moments in life that are unexplainable.

The smirk of a newborn.

How easily one's life can slip from their fingers.

How quickly one can put it back together.

The essence of hope in a time of darkness.

And despite knowing what the fuck are in hotdogs, people thoroughly still enjoy them.

Though, Emma Swan wasn't currently eating a hotdog. No, that would be all too lovely in her dark and confusing life. Instead, she was raising a hand to her head and moaning past the intense headache that rang there.

She tried to take a deep breath, pushing back the overwhelming thoughts as she tried to assist what was currently happening around her.

She was in a lumpy bed.

There was a chilly draft in the room.

And there was yelling coming from across the room.

Oh great, what a lovely way to wake up.

* * *

The mayor ran into the sheriff's station, her heart racing in her chest as she pushed through the doors.

"Where is she?" Regina demanded, voice tight with the nearing lack of control.

Graham looked up from his coffee to look at Regina's angered face. "She's in the cell sleeping it off, Madame Mayor. She ran into the sign last night and I figured she might have had a few too many drinks of your cider."

He chuckled at the thought of the Mayor's famous cider.

Regina sneered, "You idiot, she didn't take a drink. She could have a concussion. Go call Dr. Whale, now."

Regina felt like she was eighteen again.

She felt like her world had just been pulled out from underneath her and she needed confirmation.

She walked over to the open jail cell, noticing the fluttering eyes of the blonde.

Regina paused.

Lungs burning and every cell in her body seemly trying to detach from her body.

She had the same name in her previous lifetime.

The same blonde curls and curious green eyes and even the same confused look.

"Oh fuck," Emma muttered, rubbing at her temple.

And she was crass?

"Careful, Emma," the name was too familiar on the mayors lips.

It fucking hurt her to say the name.

It confused the blonde.

But hey, she was her kid's mother, so why not the pleasantries.

She winced a smile, looking up to meet the dark emotional eyes of the mayor's. "S'okay, probably just a concussion - used to it. Takes a lot to get me down."

Regina pulled back, resting her body on the heels of her feet with an intake of breath.

Oh, Emma, dear, if you only knew what it took to keep you down.


	3. 3

**3. **

* * *

Her eyes shifted nervously as memories flooded her head.

The moment she first met Emma, the girl dressed in simple cream colored jodhpurs and a pale green riding jacket with her hair tied up in a milkmaid braid.

She looked younger than Regina - she was - but she had a smile that illuminated her rosy cheeks and Regina couldn't help the butterflies in her stomach as they were released.

Regina didn't realize her mother noticing the attraction until later and if Snow fucking White didn't open her mouth - she would be happy with the love of her life.

But that would also mean she wouldn't have her son.

She shifted her eyes, trying to process everything floating through her head.

Everything inside of her - everything consuming her.

Memories of Emma in a previous life.

Emma of Regina limp in her arms as she shouted for her to come back to life.

The loneliness of being forced into a marriage.

The desperation of being the Queen.

The curse.

The monotony of the life in Storybrooke.

And then, Henry.

Her chest closed up and she was confused and all she wanted to do was take this woman who had the face and the voice and, god-fucking-dammit, the smell of a love she had once lost into her arms and never let her go.

* * *

"Excuse me, Madame Mayor?" Emma asked tentatively, watching as Regina's eyes went back and forth as if she was overlooking her face, memorizing or checking it for something.

The look, honestly, made the blonde feel highly uncomfortable.

It was too intimate for the blonde, too deep for her.

Emma shifted back a step, waving a hand up at Regina.

"Henry's mom?" She said, voice still a little rough from sleep.

Regina shook her head, blinking her eyes before focusing on the blonde. She noticed the confused expression on Emma's face - so unlike the expressions she had spent the last thirty odd years trying to retain in her memory.

"Yes, sorry," Regina spilled out of her mouth, nearly choking on the words and kicking herself for such weakness escaping her mouth. She quickly tightened her tone, "As Mayor of this town, it's my duty to make sure my citizens are well and taken care of."

Emma laughed, literally laughed at her as she rose her eyebrows, "So, you go around the hospital and jails everyday to check on every citizen, huh? Sounds a bit too much - trying to hard. Definitely not like the Evil Queen that Henry says you are."

Did Emma just get snarky with her?

Bite words at her?

What the -

Regina's breath hitched.

Why would she say that?

Evil Queen?

Regina shooked her head, "I'm sorry, what did my son say?"

Emma chuckled, bringing her hand up to wipe at her forehead, "Oh, you know, his book of fairy tales. Apparently you're the Evil Queen or something - seriously, is the kid okay?"

There was a worry creeping through the closed expression on Emma's face. How could she not be worried about the kid that went to great lengths to find her complaining about a mom who was an evil queen who casted a curse on the entire small town?

Seriously?

Regina felt the breath leave her lungs.

Her word was falling apart - ashes floating off into the sky as the wind scattered them away from her clutches.

Regina felt like she was breathing all over again.

* * *

She left the station abruptly after Emma asked if she loved her son.

Yes, she loved her son.

There was no doubt about that.

She was falling apart, though.

Her happy ending compromised.

Her heart confused.

And she was seeing red by the time her emotions were repressed and she slammed into the pawn shot.

"Well hello there, dearie." Mr. Gold's voice was liquid oil and it has never ceased to make her feel dirty.

Regina slammed her hand down on the glass counter, suddenly pissed at the lack of magic this world possessed, "How is she here? How is she alive?"

The confused look on the man's face went unnoticed as he tilted his head, "I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you should elaborate."

"Emma!"

"Oh dearie, I thought you gave up that dead girlfriend of your's years ago."

"She's alive?"

Mr. Gold paused, eyebrow hiked up at he leaned in, "What do you mean, alive? Be a good girl and tell me...please."

Regina felt dirty and disgusted and her words were vomit, "She showed up, she's Henry's mom, but it's Emma - it's her."

"Well, dearie, now that is truly a twist of events." Mr. Gold's confusion fell and he took a moment, face still, before he tilted his head back and laughed, "Sounds like you have a doppelganger on your hands."


	4. 4

**The Stable Girl Series. **

**4. **

* * *

At some point she realizes she is struggling for air when she puts her hand to her throat and gives it a gentle squeeze. She doesn't really know why she does it, it doesn't help, but she has seen it in plenty of movies and television shows that she doesn't second guess the movement. Her lungs are burning as her heart slows down just a tiny bit and a glow of panic begins to ebb somewhere inside of her abdomen to move it's way through the rest of her body.

There are memories swirling around her that she couldn't pinpoint. They were highlighting her vision and becoming blurry as she tried to spit out a breath. None of that was happening, the breathing part that is but Emma Swan could easily see the flowing images twisting around her head like a television that turned three sixty around her. They were bright and colorful and loud.

They were so loud.

Her voice diving around her head - the low hum of a playful tone spilling off of lips of someone who looked like her. It was her voice, one that she heard every day, saying these things over and over. And then, as her nails dug into her throat trying to squeeze out another breath, she caught the familiar scent.

Emma inhaled, breathing becoming easier for that second, filling her senses with the smell of currants and vanilla mixed with an earthy scent. She whipped her head around, her eyes immediately focusing on the bright scene before her.

Everything fell away.

She saw Regina, younger and brighter, no worries marring her gorgeous face. She didn't have the darkness in her eyes or a hardness about her face. Instead, the sun shown down on her face as she tossed a teasing smile to a blonde woman. Emma wrinkled her face in distaste as she noticed the odd clothing they were wearing - Regina in a purple riding coat and her hair longer, tied back. The blonde had a similar braid, fly away curls creating a halo as she took off brown leather gloves that matched the britches she wore. And then, the blonde grabbed Regina and pulled her to press their bodies together and turn slightly.

The blonde looked exactly like Emma, had Emma's voice.

And as they kissed, the blonde's eyes opened and stared right at Emma, choking her so that she collapsed onto the floor and the scene quickly disappeared.

Emma gave her throat another squeeze, coughing as it felt like water filled her lungs. The gesture didn't help but she had saw it countless times on the television that she doesn't second guess.

Emma just doesn't second guess.

* * *

It was a nightmare.

She woke up and she could breathe, rather easily in fact.

Emma was unsettled, uncomfortable, and the oddness that whelmed inside her body refused to be stuffed down into her stomach.

The dream was disturbing, sitting unevenly within her stomach, and she needed to get as far away from the confusion as she could.

She looked outside the window of the room, seeing the pinks of dawn slowly start to paint the sky and settled on the notion that running would be a good idea.

It would clear her head.

Emma got up to throw off the oversized band shirt to reach into her black duffle bag for a tight pair of black running pants, a sports bra, and a sleeveless old lady gaga tee.

She would be lying if she said her head didn't hurt - but Emma was a surviver, always was and always will be, and she pushed through the pain.

Just as she finished pulling on the sports bra, a loud knock rang through the hotel room. Emma frowned, wrinkling her forehead as she walked toward the door, toned abdomen uncovered.

"Who knocks on the door at," Emma muttered, turning her head to see the clock as she opened the door. "Six in the morning?"

"Well, good morning, Miss Swan," the husky voice of the mayor reached into her senses and the nightmare suddenly brought to the front of her mind.

Well fuck, Emma was just working on stuffing that shit down.

Except the tone in the voices were different, less hopeful and happy.

Emma frowned, her eyes meeting the darkened brown ones staring down at her shirtless torso before quickly coming back up to meet her eyes. Emma gave a small smile, unable to stop it, as she leaned against the door, "Madame Mayor, you come and make house calls too?"

This caused Regina to tilt her head and run her tongue over the top right side of her teeth before offering a smirk, "I try not to make it a habit, Miss Swan, but I did want to check on your head."

"Well, my head is alright," Emma said quickly, wincing at how fast she got the words out and the pounding setting at the front left temple. "Apples?"

Emma lifted a hand to point a finger at the basket of apples clutched in front of Regina. Regina looked down as if she had forgotten about the basket she was now white knuckling, before quickly offering it to Emma. "A thank you, for bringing Henry home safely," Regina offered. "Its from my personal apple tree - the best apples you'll ever taste."

The corner of Emma's mouth rose as she reached forward and took the basket, her fingers lightly caressing Regina's causing the woman to quickly back away. She had a soft hand, Emma was sure of that.

"Thank you," Emma said, offhandedly. "I was hungry, food headache and all."

Regina noticed the way her eyes were squinting, how she tried not to move her head as much as a normal person usually would.

Regina recognized that look - similar to the one she saw many years ago when her Emma had fallen off of a wild horse she had tried to tame.

The way the way her left ear twitched and her jaw tightening.

"Would you like to get breakfast with me, Emma?" The way the words slipped from Regina's mouth, small and hopeful with a twist of venerability, had Emma immediately nodding.

Neither really understanding why.

* * *

Later on, when Regina finds out that Emma is Snow White's daughter, she will tilt her head back at the sky and laugh at the irony.

But Regina wasn't laughing right now, nor was she celebrating. Instead she was wrangled with worry and anxiety as she fiddled with the stone in her peacoat pocket. A small green pebble that transcended the worlds when she crossed over into Storybrooke.

A simple river pebble that the blonde who had her heart used to carry around. The stone that Regina found when she preserved Emma's body.

Except they were different - the Emma's. There were a lot of similarities but Gold had mentioned doppelgängers - or at least the universe's version of it. Regina didn't know how it happened or why it had happened - but she spent the previous night after putting her son to sleep visiting her family crypt, finding the secret room, and studying every physical attribute that her old love had.

The love who didn't breathe and who's heart was stolen away and crushed. The love that was stolen away from her and who laid there, body preserved like some forgotten goddess.

No hope to ever open her eyes.

Regina was obviously a masochist.

Keeping a deep body perfectly preserved.

As she walked with Emma, making idle conversation what Emma did for her life, she let her eyes trail over to find the similarities.

Emma had a few scars, more than Regina thought was common, that her old love didn't - but down to the same freckles and moles, they seemed identical.

"Essences, dear, they have similar essences," Gold had tried to explain to her. "But they aren't exactly the same. The soul isn't completely as it was before, it never is. The universe is constantly growing and changing and so are our souls once they are free of the bodies that house them. Sometimes, rarely, the soul creates a body it had in the past to host it. No one really knows why and it's only happened two other times that I know."

There wasn't much written about something that only occurred a handful of times. There was only folklore and after a few episodes of The Vampire Diaries, Regina decided it wasn't the same occurrence (though the show could easily become the former queen's guilty pleasure).

Emma opened the door for her, pulling Regina out of her thoughts, Emma's T-shirt was baggy on her and showing more of the sports bra than Regina thought was appropriate.

It could also be the fact that the older woman found herself looking at the flesh exposed to her eyes but she wouldn't admit that or the heat at the apex of her thighs.

She sighed deeply, thinking to herself, "She's not Emma, she's not Emma."

As she walked past the blonde, inhaling a breath, she smelt the ocean and history on her skin. She smelt cinnamon and honey.

She smelt like her Emma.

* * *

She was crass.

Very much so.

And blunt to the point that she could keep up perfectly with the mayor - back and forth wit between the two of them that Regina had thought that her Emma wouldn't have been able to do.

Then again, when Regina was young she wouldn't have been able to keep up either.

It would seem that the universe was funny in the way that it had lead this Emma to her, though Regina wasn't sure it was the best idea.

"Are you serious? Here Comes the Sun was probably the most heartbreaking Beatles song that I can think of," Emma said, shaking her head and lifting her hands up in expression - one hand holding a handful of sweet potato fries - as she regarded the older woman.

Regina clicked her tongue at her, siting down her fork before answering, "Well dear, it would seem we have different experiences with these songs because Blackbird is definitely the one that causes me to be the most melancholy."

Emma stuffed the fries into her mouth and shook her head, "Obviously, I still cry when I hear Here Comes the Sun."

"Why's that, Miss Swan?" Regina scowled at the way Emma shoveled food into her mouth, raising the side of her lip up in distain. "Here Comes the Sun is obviously a song about hope and positivity, not to mention the upbeat in the background rises someone's moods."

Emma swallowed her food and bit her lip, looking down at the table. She was suddenly self conscious about her choice and about being vulnerable but the moment that she looked up to meet Regina's eyes, she couldn't help but open her mouth and reply softly. "You're right," Emma agreed. "I used to listen to it when I was pregnant, we were allowed to have cassettes in jail, and I thought of Henry as…my sun, you know? It gave me hope."

Regina's face softened, her eyes tracking Emma's face as she took in the young woman's candor comment.

She gave her a tight smile, nodding her head, "Well, it would seem both songs have special meanings to us."

Emma lifted her eyes in curiosity. "Really? What's yours mean?"

Regina turned her head, looking out the large window of the diner as she bit her lip. Emma caught the voice, the one from her dream - wistful and hopeful - as Regina replied softly, "That I finally got free."

* * *

Emma's feet pounded against the ground of the hard concrete, the ocean washing up onto shore below her as she ran. The wind brought little droplets of ocean water to splash against her face causing her to relax a little bit more.

The running was good.

It was good for her body.

Her mind.

And to fucking relieve her of the heat that Regina had caused.

Emma didn't even know if it was arousal or something within her heart but it was dangerous. Emma was impulsive enough and she didn't need to make a move on her biological son's mother.

So she ran, moving away from the concrete to run at the edge of the tides washing up onto the sand. The sun high up, brightening the afternoon.

Emma always felt close to the ocean, to water. She always felt the pull to it whenever she moved - be it ocean, lake, or river.

She pushed herself harder, forcing her thoughts to the back of her head with the pounding in her head.

She tried not to think about Regina.

She tried not to think about how easy it was to be around her or just how much of a pull the older woman had on Emma.

Emma tried to attribute it to Henry - their connection to the boy.

She tried to attribute it to physical attraction and general curiosity. She tried not to think about her at all or the way her pencil skirt rose up to expose her olive toned thigh.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fuckity.

Fuck.

Emma paused, the need to breath and get her heart to slow down and stop abusing her ribs high. She leaned over, hands on knees as she took deep breaths and moved her head to stop the course of sweat falling into her eyes.

She let out a loud grown, trying to stop her thoughts.

She couldn't care this much.

She should be on the road, heading to a new destination.

So why wasn't she?

Why was she still here?

What unsettled Emma the most was the answer wasn't because of a little boy that came to seek her out. Instead, it was about a mysterious and closed off woman with a smile that cut away at Emma's beating heart.


End file.
